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Life at the Intersection.

Welcome to the Hood.

I’ve been mulling over this intro for days. I’m pretty lousy at writing them. I know that they are supposed to be all cute and clever and full of hope and whimsy. Given my current state, I’m not sure if I can give you, Kind Reader, any of those things. But I can let you in on what we hope to accomplish with Hood Feminism.

As a kid, I grew up on the margins. I am the progeny of a career barmaid and a drug-addicted tradesman. I knew little of feminism until college, and–even then–it was something to be avoided. As an adult I’d get a crash course on the subject (and all of the icky politics surrounding it) on LiveJournal. I read the books and learned the jargon. I attended discussions and conferences. I did all of the things I thought one was supposed to do to be A Good Feminist. Still, I felt…left out. Disconnected. The prevailing notion of a “one size fits all” movement made little sense.

A lot of the conversations happening then are the same ones happening now. That’s not good. If anything, it points to the stagnation of a movement so enamored with itself that it cannot be bothered to look beyond its reflection. While Big Name Feminists are debating The End of Men, women on the margins–women like me–are sleeping at train stations and working double shifts for paltry wages. They are buying school supplies with rent money. They are fighting for citizenship because they aren’t the “right kind of immigrants.”

When mainstream feminists do deign to recognize these women, they always talk about them, never to them. They are problems to be solved, not actual human beings. At best, they are worthy of a 200-word blog post or a 10-minute segment on a Sunday morning show. But once the post is published, once the lights are dimmed, it’s back to business as usual, and soon we’re back to shaming women for taking their husbands’ last names.

So, it’s time to change the game.

Hood Feminism hopes to accomplish what other sites haven’t. We don’t want to talk at folks; we want them to be part of the conversation. We want to give folks the space to tell their own stories. To talk about the things that matter. To highlight remarkable people doing remarkable things. And to have a little fun.

There will be original reporting, interviews, and a number of series on topics ranging from homeschooling to police brutality. There will be podcasts and G+ Hangouts and (maybe in the not-so-near future) a live event or two. We want to create a safe space for those who need it most.

As bell hooks once wrote, “Feminism is for everybody.” We’re gonna make damned sure it is.

You know how almost every mainstream biopic of the origins of feminism – like that PBS Makers thing or the Making of Mad Men mini-docs – makes out like rich white housewives just got really bored one day and made a feminism? It’s always bugged me but for some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on why or I hadn’t thought about it enough. It erases a lot of women’s experiences and a lot of real history around women’s rights advocacy. But even before that even occurred to me I was thinking well shit I don’t have a college degree or a glamorous career I guess I’m not wanted here.

I am a grasroots community organizer in Miami working against a range of issues from Trayvon’s Law and getting Marissa Alexander freed to getting hopsitals to stop pushing formula on Black moms. Unfortunately, even in activist and organizing spaces, Black women are still incredibly marginalized.

Spaces like this one are necessary…I will be sharing your blogs all around my network in effort to deepen consciousness and get folks thinking…thank you!

Thank you for making this blog public. I hope it’s ok if I sit, read and listen. I don’t want to be part of Big Name Feminism. If I shouldn’t be here, though, I’m happy to go; we white chicks have a nasty habit of “helping” by inserting ourselves into spaces that aren’t ours.